The Eternal Run
by RiverCookie
Summary: Will Guy Dangerous and his friends ever make their way out of the temple? (SPOILERS: no)


**Product of several weeks worth of sitting in a gym waiting for 9:00 so that I could go learn math, with only my iPod to entertain me. Have fun.**

* * *

He came here in search of riches.

When he first set foot in this accursed land, he was looking for treasure. Deep in the jungles of a faraway land laid a mysterious remnant of the lost Mayincatec empire. A temple, he had heard, with a great treasure hidden deep inside. He'd heard rumors and legends of the many brave people who had gone in search of it, and how none of them had ever returned, but those tales of failure all failed to deter him from going in search of this lost temple. He gathered up all the info on the temple he could get his hands on, packed his bags, and headed off for adventure. He was Guy Dangerous, just your average explorer. But he was going to find that treasure.

What a brave man. What a brave, naive fool.

His heart pounded away in his chest as his boots pounded against the ancient stone. Behind him were the hoots and screams of the most terrifying creatures he had ever laid eyes on. They were monkeys, yes. Evil demon monkeys, to be precise. The flesh of their faces had rotted off to expose the bone beneath, and their wretched hands sprouted claws like that of devil spawn. And they were after him. Again.

The golden idol was tucked under his arm. He couldn't remember why he had taken it once more, when he knew full well what would happen, but here he was, running once more. His muscles burned with every leap he took over chasms and encroaching roots, but still he ran, driven by the terror that the demons chasing him seemed to exude. He could only get so far, however. An errant step, and he felt his body be crushed against stone.

And then he woke up. The musty smell of the temple filled his lungs again. It was a familiar scent by now.

The first time this happened, he had shrugged it off as a result of the concussion he might have given himself a few minutes earlier from a low-hanging ceiling, and picked up the idol again. The same thing happened again.

Out of pride and indignation, he grabbed it again, and again. In hindsight, he really might have been suffering from a concussion, but it wouldn't have mattered anyways. Every run ended in failure, and began anew.

He had stopped after his fifth death, the concept of futility having finally been driven into his thick skull. He'd thought about it for a bit, and decided to just leave without the treasure. He hadn't gone three feet before the howls started behind him. The idol was in his hands. When did it get in his hands? He was so startled that he tripped almost immediately along the path.

It was in that way that he realized that there was no escape.

That brought him back here. He sighed, picked up the idol, and took off running again. Like each time, the path seemed to twist in ways and crumble in places that he didn't remember, maybe because of fear messing with his memory, maybe because the path really did change. It didn't matter; no matter how far he ran, there was never an end. He'd come to learn that over time.

A yell of "Hey, Guy!" came his way as he neared a fork in the road. From one side came running a lady with a scarlet mane and a scarlet name, pursued by her own group of demon monkeys. He turned the bend, and she quickly caught up to him.

"So, where were we last time?" she said between pants.

"Your third performance."

"Ah, right."

He'd started meeting others on his way around the fiftieth run. Before, he had glimpsed others through the trees or heard distant screams, but it was only then that he actually started running into people.

The first time he literally ran into a young lady, whom he apologized to on a subsequent run. She introduced herself as Scarlett Fox, which was a name that he recognized. Her face lit up when he mentioned that, but fell once more when he said it was from a list of people who had gone in search of the temple and never returned. "Figures," she'd said. "Dead artists are just better. Did I mention that I'm an escape artist?"

When she failed to clear a jump with him and was sent screaming into the abyss, he sighed and continued on. What else could he do?

Once he'd run into a conquistador from centuries past, who yelled at him in what he presumed to be Spanish and then smashed himself against a tree. He wasn't inclined to resume the conversation.

Another time, he ran into a cop by the name of Barry Bones, who was, sadly, only twenty years away from retirement when he ended up here after a very wrong turn. He was still surprisingly cocky about this desolate situation he found himself in. "What can I say?" He said. "I'm just a city cop with attitude."

There was even one run when he saw a football player charge by. He didn't even bother to ask questions that time.

Over the runs, he'd gotten to know them and had managed to make friends along the way. People of all sorts from all backgrounds and even all times had come here and been trapped. While their company helped to while the time away, he couldn't help but feel hopelessly lost through the endless days. Lives were finite, and so were the stories that could be drawn from them. With every tale he regaled his temporary companions with and every tale they shared with him, the pit of fear inside of him grew deeper.

He was going to be here forever. He would tell all the stories he had, and they would tell him all of theirs, and then all that would be left was this broken-record portion of his never-ending life.

A jump at the wrong time, and he ended up in the croc-infested swamp. He awoke again shortly after. This time, he'd run maybe a thousand feet, he thought. To supplement his dying life, he kept track of how many steps he had taken, and estimate how far he'd run that way. He'd suggested this to his friends, and thus they would compete to see who could get the farthest, who could come closest to getting out alive. He hoped sometimes that this would help them find some way to escape for good, but he knew as well as anyone that it was a futile task. They'd all go insane before they ever found a way out.

Perhaps this was the temple's old owners' punishment for those who sought the thrill of a questionable endeavor for treasure. To trap them forevermore in the climax of their story, to give them the thrill they had sought from defiling their ancient temple...for eternity. But this was far too heavy-handed, wasn't it?

It was almost like the ancients were watching him as he ran through the ever-changing land, laughing at him and jeering that he could escape if he could just get ten yards farther. Were they tallying his scores with him? Did they keep track of how far he had tried to run? Was this a game to them?

He put his head in his hands. That didn't matter. Not anymore.

With a heavy sigh, he stood up and took the idol into his hands. The screams and howls started, and so he took off, boots smacking against the ground that was far less worn than it appeared...for it was the road for a thousands souls' eternal temple run.


End file.
